The halfway mark of 2024 is here! So many great books have come out this year, and we are excited to share some of our top picks as we approach summer. Be sure to add these to your TBR!
The Things We Didn't Know by Elba Iris Pérez | ADULT FICTION
"Pérez's debut novel will resonate with readers who grew up in two worlds and tried to find stability in both. From Massachusetts to Puerto Rico and back again, her young heroine Andrea struggles with identity, gender roles, and the angst of growing up. Not to mention family dramas galore, betrayals and prejudice for being a brown family in a white town. The writing is authentic and engrossing."
--Maria Ferrer, Events Director
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez | ADULT FICTION
"Anita de Monte is a talented Latina artist breaking through the white, male-centered New York art world of the 1980s (inspired by the true tragic story of Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta). Raquel Toro is a first gen Puerto Rican college student at Brown nearly two decades later. With two timelines and multiple POVs, readers will connect with these two women facing parallel questions about who belongs and who gets to tell their stories."
--Stefanie Sanchez Von Borstel, Fellowship Director
The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez | ADULT FICTION
"This is a gorgeous, important historical novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, but more deeply about progress and humanity and where the two meet. Henríquez's prose swept me up and her characters enthralled me to the very end."
--Toni Kirkpatrick, Board Secretary
The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James | ADULT FICTION
"There are various hard-won lessons I learned in reading this sprawling family saga in the dead of winter (for Los Angeles standards), though I mentally spent most of it in the oppressive desert heat of Mexico and Texas with El Tragabalas, strapped onto a horse of some kind. This is a book that pointedly asks how -- and when -- do we pay for our ancestral sins? The Bullet Swallower almost has you believe you can outrun fate, just because there are so many close calls."
--Andrea Morales, Fellowship and Writers Mentorship Director
